


The Remembrance of Flowers

by Reneehart



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Tom Riddle's Diary, but is classic luna, diary!Tom, for now, i may passively begin to add to it as i go, luna finds the diary, not sure yet - Freeform, unedited we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reneehart/pseuds/Reneehart
Summary: Someone finds the diary after Ginny tosses it.Tom will be gentler with this one, he decides.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Tom Riddle
Comments: 8
Kudos: 183





	The Remembrance of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a challenge I attempted. Prompt: "I'm not a little girl anymore."
> 
> A slightly longer than average drabble. I may add to it if inspiration strikes, but have no commitment to it yet. Hope you enjoy!

Luna found the diary in the second floor lavatory, lying in a puddle of water. The leather cover was soft and worn, the pages sodden. Gold lettering peeled from the bottom, barely visible from the wear. But she could still make out the name, fingers brushing across the printed letters. T M Riddle.

She did not know the name- none of her classmates from either Houses had such a name.

She stashed it in her bag as Myrtle told of the angry girl who tossed the diary away. She apologized as she left- she hadn’t been the one to throw it, but she apologized all the same, unable to imagine how dreadful it might be.

She forgot about the diary for some time, crushed with the weight of her school texts and a muggle novel her mother bought her as a young girl that she liked to reread despite committing the story to heart. It wasn’t until the end of the school year that she found it, curled and crinkled from being bent for too long. She had been cleaning out her bag when she discovered it for the second time, and she frowned, tilting her chin. She never did find anyone with the name Riddle in her school, and no one had seemed distraught over the missing diary. Flipping through, she saw that the pages were blank- warped and stained, curling dramatically inward- but blank nonetheless.

“Curious,” she said with a hum, but it explained why no one sought it. There were no secrets to divulge, no shame hidden away in its pages. It was just a blank book.

It was slim enough that she could slip it between her text books, the heavy and thick binding hopefully enough to straighten it out some.

She continued to pack her belongings.

**

It was dark.

Cold.

Maddening.

When Ginny left, she took the warmth with her. The light. Without her words, her soul, her magic to feed on, the world that was slowly building around him came crashing down. Power and triumph fell from his grasp, replaced with desperation. Coiling, repulsive desperation. He was an animal in a cage, ribs visible with a hunger that evaded him, wandering in circles day and night.

Time was indistinguishable. There was no way to separate the minutes from the hours from the years. Ginny would begin each entry with the date, until she was writing so often and frequently that the date did not matter because he could keep time himself by the pauses in her writings- she was in class, she was asleep. There was a predictability to her obsession.

Until there wasn’t, and she threw him away.

She was frightened of him.

He would kill her, if he ever broke free. Rabid and feral, he would rip her flesh from bone for what she did to him. The light falling to shadows, growing dimmer and dimmer until there was nothing at all. Not darkness or shadows, just an absence of everything.

He had been so close, he could nearly feel the sun on his nonexistent skin, the wind whipping through his nonexistent hair.

It was so cold.

The shadows shifted, lifting like curtains pulling away in a breeze. He blinked at the nothingness that seemed a little more substantial, less tenuous and uncertain. Less nebulous.

Someone opened the book.

If he had been a simpler man, he might have cried in relief. Shed tears in unabashed optimism that he might finally be freed. His stomach growled in a hunger that did not demand food, teeth grinding in anticipation.

Something was placed in his hand- appearing out of the nothingness, manifesting from the shadows- and he shivered, relishing in the feeling of something against his palm. It was small, weightless. He ran his fingers other the object, silken and soft. Delicate. Fragile. He knew what it was immediately, a recognition of something he had not seen or touched or thought of in decades (longer for all he knew).

He lifted the flower to his nose, blinking at the curling petals. His palm was stained green, small white slivers cutting across from the thorns.

The minor sting felt good. Pleasant in a way that pain often wasn’t. Pain was better than the nothingness.

And someone had opened his diary.

They were pressing flowers in it, but soon they may begin writing into it. And that would be enough. Enough to sustain him, to abate the hunger until he could grow stronger. Light seeping through the darkness. He could be whole again.

He caressed the rose, rubbing his thumb and finger along the smooth petals.

It felt like freedom.

**

Luna had no real purpose for the diary. She liked to let books tell her what to do with them- she had one with coarse paper and a thick binding that demanded to be painted in, one with satin ribbons weaving through the spine that she saved for her more important thoughts.

But this one was unclear. It demanded nothing in particular, noticeably blank in a way other blank books simply weren’t. It seemed to despise the absence of words and drawings, but didn’t quite know what it wanted.

So she pressed flowers in it instead.

Flowers sat in her lap, held by the fabric of her dress pulled taut. Lilies, roses, daisies, lavender, begonias- all pulled from the garden surrounding her home. They were the ones that were a bit imperfect- a wilted petal, crisp and brown, or blossoms that never fully bloomed. They seemed small and sad in the garden, but filled the pages of the diary with beauty and color.

They seemed at home.

**

She didn’t write in the diary until a few weeks passed by.

She awoke in the middle of the night, heart racing and sweat slicking her skin. It had been a nightmare, and she hastily reached for the first book she had beside her. Thin and pressed flower fluttered to the floor, but she paid them no mind, focusing only on the journal and pen.

She wrote aimlessly, unfocused, detailing the dream in the meandering way one did when recalling something so surreal, so disbelieving.

If a tear fell to the page, she didn’t notice it.

She certainly didn’t notice when it and the first of her words began to disappear.

**

The words came to Tom suddenly, wonderfully. Just as the rose had appeared in his hand, so too did the words in his mind. He was basking in their warmth, the tremor that shook the nothingness, displaced it by several degrees. There was more light, more life.

The words were nonsense, mumbled incoherent nothings.

‘ _I was lost in a maze but instead of hedges, the walls were canvases. There were all sorts of paintings- ballerinas and flowers and landscapes- but the further into the maze I got, the less defined they became. The colors were darker, and instead of shapes it was just drippings and splotches. The red ones looked like blood-’_

He furrowed his brow, mouth twitching. First he was pressing flowers, now he was being used as a dream journal?

‘ _When I reached the center of the maze, my mother was standing there. It was sad, because it took me a moment to realize it was her. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, I’ve almost forgotten what she looked like. But the worse part was, she didn’t recognize me either. I’m not a little girl anymore, and when she looked at me, it was like she was looking through me. I felt so small...’_

Tom smiled, the gesture cruel and unnatural.

He could work with that. She had handed him all the tools he needed, offered him all the information he would need. Mother- dead, perhaps from something violent that left her blood splattered against the walls. Her fears sinking teeth into her dreams, afraid of being forgotten and left behind.

His words came easy. There was a familiarity to this, one that he enjoyed and reveled in.

‘ _Terribly sorry to interrupt, but is everything alright? You’re not in any danger, are you?’_

Concerned, kind and patient.

Tom was always a good friend, a good listener. Ginny had thought so too, until the blank spaces in her memory grew too great. The headaches and anxiety too pervasive.

He would be gentler with this one, he decided.

It didn’t take long for the stream of consciousness to end, a silence between the words that followed.

“ _Is someone in there?”_

“ _Yes, my name is Tom Riddle. May I ask who’s in possession of my diary?”_

“ _Luna. I’m sorry, Mr. Riddle. I didn’t know it belonged to somebody- but may I ask how you got to be in there?”_

“Luna,” he said the name aloud, tasting it like wine, tongue rolling at the decadence, the luxury of existence personified with a name that others might say. He had been denied that for far too long, and his stomach growled with want. Need. His blood warmed, and he felt renewed from the animal that cowered in its cage, desperate and starving.

He felt ferocious.

“ _It was an accident, Luna. I’ve been trapped here for so long, it’s nice to finally have someone to talk to...”_


End file.
